Top Estate Planning Attorneys in Westlake Village, CA (2026)

Westlake Village has about 7,800 residents, a median home value near $1.4 million, and a median household income around $180,000. It is also, by a quirk of 1960s land planning, a city that isn’t entirely in one county.

The community was developed as a single master-planned lake community starting in the mid-1960s. About two-thirds of that original development sits east and north of the county line, in Ventura County, and was later annexed into the City of Thousand Oaks. The remaining third, the part that incorporated as its own city in 1981, is in Los Angeles County. The line runs diagonally through the community and splits the bridge over Westlake Lake itself: cross it, and you cross counties. Most residents never think about which side of that line their house sits on, until a death in the family forces the question.

Add to that a concentration of corporate executives and business owners unusual for a city this small, headquarters for Dole Food Company, Guitar Center, and PennyMac Financial Services are all here, and you have a resident population with equity compensation, closely held business interests, and estates large enough that the details of the plan matter more than the fact that a plan merely exists.

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How to vet an estate planning attorney

The California State Bar certifies attorneys as Legal Specialists in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. Fewer than 1% of California attorneys hold this credential. It requires a written exam, substantial documented experience, and peer review. You can verify any attorney’s specialist status at calbar.ca.gov.

Beyond certification, look for:

• A practice focused on estate planning, not a general practice that also handles trusts on the side.
• Direct access to the attorney, not a paralegal-driven process that hands you a binder to sign.
• Flat, disclosed fees, quoted before you engage.
• Knowledge of which county your home actually sits in. Westlake Village probate can be filed in either Los Angeles County Superior Court (Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street, downtown Los Angeles) or Ventura County Superior Court (Juvenile and Probate Division, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard), depending on which side of the line the decedent lived on. An attorney who doesn’t ask the question, or who assumes one or the other, is guessing.

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Estate planning attorneys serving Westlake Village

Ridley Law

Eric D. Ridley has practiced estate planning in Ventura County since 2010, working with families across Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, and the surrounding area. The firm handles living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, trust administration, and probate. Flat-fee pricing, disclosed before engagement. Free 30-minute initial consultation by phone or video.

567 W. Channel Islands Boulevard, Suite 210, Port Hueneme, CA 93041. (805) 244-5291.

Westlake Law Group

David Esquibias (State Bar #171327) was admitted to the California Bar in 1994 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. He holds an LLM in Taxation from Villanova University. His practice includes trust litigation alongside traditional estate planning, which matters if a plan is ever contested rather than simply administered.

30699 Russell Ranch Road, Suite 210, Westlake Village, CA 91362.

Pederson Law

Grant Pederson (State Bar #249433) was admitted to the California Bar in 2007 and is a past chair of the Conejo Valley Estate Planning Council. Camille Aceituno, also a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, practices alongside him. The firm handles wills, trusts, trust administration, and probate.

920 Hampshire Road, Suite A1, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

Botti & Morison

Christopher Botti (State Bar #150071) was admitted to the California Bar in 1990 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. The firm handles estate planning, trust administration, and probate, including trust and probate litigation when disputes arise.

2625 Townsgate Road, Suite 330, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

Mary Kulvinskas, Attorney at Law

Mary Kulvinskas (State Bar #201469) was admitted to the California Bar in 1999 and practices as a solo attorney handling estate planning, trust administration, and probate litigation. The combination of transactional planning and litigation experience is useful if a family anticipates a contested trust or will down the road.

2625 Townsgate Road, Suite 330, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

CunninghamLegal

James Cunningham (State Bar #171843) leads this multi-office California firm, which maintains a Westlake Village location. CunninghamLegal is a larger operation than most firms on this list, with offices across the state, which can mean more institutional resources but less direct one-on-one attorney access than a boutique practice offers.

4165 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite 145, Westlake Village, CA 91362.

Gray & Barba LLP

Chris Gray (State Bar #153550) and Claudia Barba (State Bar #207381) are both UCLA-educated attorneys practicing estate planning, trust administration, and probate from neighboring Thousand Oaks. The firm is bilingual in English and Spanish, which matters for Westlake Village and Conejo Valley families who need documents and conversations available in both languages.

1333 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite 212, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362.

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What Westlake Village families actually deal with

A city split by a county line

Westlake Village is the rare place where “where do I file probate” doesn’t have one answer. Probate venue in California is generally set by where the decedent resided at death (Probate Code § 7051). If that residence is on the Los Angeles County side, the estate is heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. If it’s on the Ventura County side, including the portion annexed into Thousand Oaks, the estate is heard at the Juvenile and Probate Division in Oxnard. Same community, same lake, same zip code area, different courthouse, different local rules, and in practice a very different drive for whoever is administering the estate.

This isn’t trivia. A trust or will drafted without confirming which county the client’s residence is actually in can lead a family to the wrong courthouse if the plan fails or a dispute lands in court. Ask your attorney directly which county your specific address falls in. If they can’t answer without looking it up on the spot, that’s useful information too.

Executives, founders, and equity compensation

Dole, Guitar Center, and PennyMac Financial Services are all headquartered in Westlake Village, and the city’s demographics reflect it: a median household income around $180,000 and a concentration of corporate executives, founders, and closely held business owners well beyond what a city of 7,800 people would otherwise suggest. Estates here regularly involve restricted stock units, deferred compensation plans, incentive stock options, and beneficiary designations tied to an employer’s benefits portal rather than a generic account statement.

None of that is handled by a boilerplate trust. Equity compensation frequently has its own vesting and transfer rules that a trust cannot override. Deferred comp plans have their own beneficiary forms, separate from the trust, that are easy to forget and expensive to get wrong. A business owner’s estate plan also needs a succession mechanism for the business itself, not just a distribution scheme for its value. As of 2026, the federal estate tax exemption is $15 million per person under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, high enough that most Westlake Village estates won’t owe federal estate tax, but that doesn’t make the mechanics of transferring equity compensation, deferred comp, or a closely held business any simpler.

Prop 19 and Westlake Village’s housing stock

Much of Westlake Village was built out between the mid-1960s and the 1990s. Families who bought during that period commonly have property-tax assessments in the range of $150,000 to $350,000. The median home in Westlake Village is now worth about $1.4 million.

Before Proposition 19 took effect in February 2021, a child who inherited a parent’s home also inherited the parent’s tax basis, with no cap. That is no longer the case. Under Prop 19, a child who inherits a parent’s primary residence and moves in within one year gets a partial exclusion: the first $1,044,586 of reassessed value above the prior taxable value is excluded, and anything above that is reassessed to current market value. A child who doesn’t move in gets no exclusion at all, and the home is fully reassessed.

On a Westlake Village home assessed at $200,000 with a current market value of $1.4 million, the increase in assessed value is $1.2 million, still under the exclusion amount if a child moves in within a year. But many Westlake Village homes carry assessed values well below $200,000 given how long some families have held them, and a second home, a rental, or a child who doesn’t move in changes the math entirely. This is not a plan you want your family reverse-engineering from a property tax bill after the fact.

The probate math on a Westlake Village home

Probate fees in California are set by statute (Probate Code §§ 10810 and 10800), calculated on the gross value of the estate, not equity net of any mortgage. On a Westlake Village home at the city’s median value of $1.4 million, the statutory fee is $27,000 for the attorney and $27,000 for the executor. That’s $54,000 in statutory fees alone, before court costs, appraisal fees, or any petition for extraordinary compensation, and before anyone has figured out which courthouse handles the filing.

A funded living trust avoids probate, and its associated fees, entirely. The cost of setting one up is a fraction of $54,000. The difference is that you pay for the trust while you’re alive and in control, or your family pays for probate after you’re gone, in whichever county turns out to have jurisdiction.

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Credentials listed are drawn from the firms’ own public information, the State Bar of California, and public court records. This page is not a ranking and is not an endorsement. Ridley Law is listed first because we publish this page, not because of any ranking; we are included because we serve Westlake Village. We wrote this page, and we think you should know that. Verify any attorney’s license status and specialist certification at calbar.ca.gov.